Levithian

And my reply is basically saying if they are, the direct fallout, other than word of mouth/reputation is pretty much nill anyway.

The company, as they testified at the inquest, has a policy in place that the ride pumps were not to be restarted multiple times. They also testified how important water levels are from a safety standpoint. Not only that, but they also testified that they knew there was a problem with the pumps and had an expert tasked with coming to inspect them. On top of that, they knew the age of the units too, and had a history of faults occurring during the month leading up to the deaths. So even after experts have testified they had very, very poor documentation or procedures in place, what poor practices they thought they should adhere to, were ignored by managers anyway. Given the history and the fact that you thought it frequent enough to have an external company come to inspect/repair them, if you continually had faults after the fact the proper decision was to close the ride until the problem could be rectified. Opening it, knowing all this is negligence. Even if for a moment you could prove the operators didnt shut the ride down properly. The park is still negligent for returning it to service multiple times creating the situation in the first place. if they are based overseas, even if they are, a judgement handed down against them in australia would basically prohibit them from trading in the country again under threat of staff being arrested at the airport, BUT if you actually wanted anything out of them you would have to file a motion in the court based in their home territory and probably have it go to trial. So you'd have to fight another legal battle in another country under their system/rules, which means all the testimony, all the witnesses, etc would probably have to be presented again. So thats probably not going to happen, but it would be nice if they were effectively blocked from providing services within the country.

You dont need to know how each ride physically works to oversee a department. You have to UNDERSTAND how engineering principles work and UNDERSTAND control systems, so when your very experienced (with this ride, function or system) staff come to you, explaining the situation or discussing a matter with you, you know what they are talking about even if it means you can't walk over to a ride and push buttons on a console. You can talk over to a ride with this very knowledgeable tech staff who know exactly how to operate the ride, who then can perform those very basic functions while you talk about the actual control systems and mechanics that are happening once that button is pushed. See the difference? You know what systems are actually functioning when you press that button that starts a conveyor, and how that conveyor works. The operator pushing the button only understands the function, not the process. The department head is going to know about the engineering that goes into running a complex machine like an amusement ride, they don't have to sit down in front of a ride and run it. Might things change following this inquest? maybe. But it really doesn't make a lot of difference. Unless you are a chartered engineer registered with one of the few societies in the country, you aren't making judgement calls on systems anyway. So even having an engineer in the top job of the maintenance department who could replace a sick operator at a moments notice isn't going to achieve much. What you are supposed to be is someone up on current industry standards around things like safety and operation and very adept at recognising potential issues before they happen. This is what half of your job is, the running of the department is left to supervisors. You oversee the works and are tasked with bringing in auditors and technical inspectors or 3rd party engineers for advice or to respond to outside requests, changes or incidents. You basically want a chartered engineer prepared to put a recommendation to paper, essentially putting their registration and insurances on the line. I would be surprised if there are any of these people in any theme park in the country. They are the ones that command big dollars and are ultimately singing off on projects and developments for pretty much everything you see around us. If a person has had a hand in building or maintaining it, there's a chartered engineer who has signed off on it. So, going ahead and making changes to a control system full of buttons and complex controls isn't something someone running the department probably does either. It would be like my boss coming into the office on monday and saying he wants the bottom chords moved higher in all the trusses of this conversion we are doing so they aren't immediately visible from the big glass doors at the end of the building. No problems, i'll just change the bottom timbers out on all the engineered components that hold the roof up and tie the walls together. It's not like it would need a complete redesign to be safe, no big deal. What seems to have happened at dreamworld though is they have had good, 3rd party, professional advice on many issues of safety, control and operation of their rides, and little to none of it has been implemented. This may not be just an issue with the department head though as they would have budgets to work within, but further up the management chain where the money decisions are really made. Especially when it seems clear they had been told to put a hold on any spending that wasn't already a capital works project. Really, jail time needs to be an outcome of this. Who gets jailed should ultimately come down to who made the yes or no decisions that placed ALL of us in jeopardy. Not just the people who lost their lives, BUT EVERY PERSON WHO VISITED THE PARK IN RECENT HISTORY. If there is a long suffering maintenance department burried under the lack of funding decided upon by people like the financial officers, park general manager or even the chief operations officer, then no matter how inept some people in the department were, it's not ultimately their responsibility alone. In this specific case; Yes - allowing the ride to return to operation that many times following faults should see you jailed. You ignored even your very poor control methods/standards and people died because of it. The ride should never have been running, and if you advised park management of this and they put pressure on you to keep it open, you should have grown a spine and told them it's an issue of safety and you weren't prepared to open the ride until the electrician arrives to inspect the problems with the pumps. and Yes - Not approving a MAJOR safety upgrade to your ride that would have made its operation easier and implemented a control system that no longer required the input or judgement of operators, which would have meant these people would not have been killed, you go to jail. You, or they (together) sat there in front of a bunch of numbers and discussed the works and ultimately decided an amount worth less than your monthly salary was too great to ensure that your guests will be afforded with at least a basic level of safety that should have been (and was previously recommended) performed long ago. You put a price on each of those people's heads that amounted to a few thousand dollars each. You all should go to jail. And if they bring in a new law that requires every amusement operator in the country to register for a licence to operate amusement rides, you should be struck off the register to make sure you are NEVER in the position to weigh up the cost of human life again. You were supposed to weigh up the cost of upgrading the ride vs shutting it down, you weren't supposed to weigh up the cost of safety vs the cost of human life. I hope it comes out in the inquest if these same methods were applied to any other rides too, because it's these people that need to be turned out for all the media and the general public to see. There needs to be a clear message sent out that it's not OK to judge who lives and who dies. If you cannot afford to maintain, upgrade and operate a complex, dangerous machine within the grounds of what the safety industry, and hell, members of the public consider an acceptable risk; then you don't get to open the chain links or gates to that ride until you come up with the funding to do so. When it starts becoming a business of making profit for shareholders, you start killing people and that should never be acceptable. The board members who stepped down should have necked the lot of them and turfed them all out as they were out the door themselves.

I see no mention of lasers in the job listing. Why are there no lasers?!

Plus get those people in that skim lakes to remove plant growth aswell. They use nets and drag it to the shore.

I think the controlling factor height wise is going to be possible different foundations required and how deep/how much they have to spend to keep going up. Starts getting real expensive when you have to put in a cofferdam. Might reach a point where the bean counters decide its not worth the added spend to go up another 10m, etc.

Yes, which is why i was replying to the person above me who said nothing much more will come from regulators. They have plenty to answer for as well, as they dont just work within the theme parks, but industry as a whole. So it could call into question hundreds or thousands of investigations or cases they are ultimately responsible for, which probably has greater impact than establishing the liability of dreamworld. Especially if the coroner passes down recommedations of some sort of licence or registration scheme. You cant task the same regulators who ultimately overlooked so much with the responsibility of overseeing a new standard. Might mean quite a bit for safety compliancing in general if they are critical of the government workplace inspectors.

All the external companies tasked with inspections or compliancing having been called yet though have they? Theres plenty for government inspectors/agencies to answer for. Things like why, over years of operation and inspection, did the registration for all rides and plant equipment, and lodging of those documents slip through the cracks? Why was it allowed to continue and why werent the lapses investigated which probably would have shown some pretty big discrepancies in their documentation and policies, which should have snowballed into a full blown investigation. Where there's smoke, there's fire, etc. Might not have saved lives and stopped an incident like this happening, but on the other hand, after being thoroughly investigated and being taken to task for such poor attitudes towards operation and documentation of their rides, the apparent lack of policies and proceedures when it comes to safety; It may have caused them to make safety upgrades a priority to appease the assessors which would have saved these people. Its all very open ended, lots of what if's, but inquests by nature are looking at all parties for anything thats overlooked, or basically failure to do the job they are tasked with (usually in the interest of the general public). Includes government departments, even responders like medical people and police who attended. Even if they did nothing wrong, by nature of this basically being a first in the state, the coroner often makes recommendations how to better improve how the services respond in this situation too.

Brakes in the station are still friction brakes. If they have replaced the shoes or the brake fins, you get that smell for awhile.

I know exactly what people are getting at, with the expectation of witnessing trauma. I understand what is being said by reasonable people here, im just trying to get people to understand it is fundamentally wrong and walks all over employee rights that everyone is entitled to. All we can do is minimise the potential for harm, we cant remove it. So its even MORE important that people in these positions are afforded the same coverage and compensation as the rest of us. Why would anyone put themselves out there? It would be like russian roulette. The desire to help those in need isnt going to override the possibility youll ruin your work life, maybe break up your marriage, your family and even contemplate suicide. Again, high risk work environments do not absolve those the right to seek compensation simply because they are employed in that position. The other people i saw commenting on articles saying they are money seeking or money grabbing really pissed me off though and is why i initially replied. Those people are vile and should hope they never need medical assistance.

Universal Singapore - 2017 Attendance - 4.22 million Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast - Combined 2017 Attendance - 4.96 million. See the difference? a park like Movieworld still only has roughly half the attendance of Universal in Singapore.

Do you not understand that there is NO line drawn in the sand? Armed forces, police, fire, ambo, doctors, nurses, there is no line drawn that says you may experience terrible things in the course of your duties so you are not afforded all the entitlements and coverage of, say, an employee that works a register at Aldi. That's exactly what happens. It's literally taken years for it to get this far, previously these people suffered in silence, especially after being discharged and left to their own devices. It's still a battle these people are fighting, to encourage those suffering to come forward before doing something drastic. How is this news to you? This means that if you suffer a mental episode or breakdown and can no longer return to your position on the police force, you are entitled to compensation just like if you were shot or stabbed. You have suffered an injury in the course of your duty. Do you not understand that? We are all covered under the same umbrella. Being called a bad name and seeking compensation because your declared medically unfit to return to duty are two VASTLY different things. That's what medical professionals are for, they not only counsel but help gauge the seriousness of their injury in an effort to return them to work. That's not always possible and opens employees up to permanent disability or incapability payments too. Take these 3 people for instance. It's a given that all would have been attending some form of counselling after the accident, even as simply a form of debriefing and not because you were having issues dealing with what you had seen. How do you know what has happened when they attempted to, or did actually return to work? They all have different times when they ended their employment with the company, so it may indicate they were impacted differently or responded differently when or if they went back to work. Take note, you can still be employed but not actually working while you are going through counseling. The telling factor that all people are still suffering is that they are still actively seeking counselling. They are entitled to compensation for what they have been through, including the potential for loss of income or being unable to return to work permanently. As the court proceedings are showing, there is proof that dreamworld have been negligent in their duties to provide a safe workplace which has opened them up to civil action from staff. It is a mandatory requirement of the work health and safety act. They failed virtually every key point of the act and they should be held accountable as far as the law extends. That includes by their employees who feel they have been wronged by the company.

Thats not the issue i have, or what im frustrated with. People take on these roles knowing for well they may experience something so graphic that would make the rest of us crawl up into the foetal position and shutdown completely. So when they cant; when all the counselling, all the support and all the medication that the medical profession can utilise is not enough to repair your mental health so that you'll again, turn up to your shift again, they are entitled to all the support offered to every single employee in the country. High impact or stressful workplaces dont absolve people of being able to claim compensation simply because they took on the job; these workplaces simply create more statistics and injure more people. Its one of the greatest rights fought for in the history of workers entitlements ever. Employee worth was considered less than the components or products they were producing. You have the industrial revolution to thank for being provided with a safe working environment and compensation for injury suffered in the course of your duties. So, when you turn around and say they arent entitled to what is now fundamentally some of the most basic rights of all employees, simply because they choose to turn up to work, then you are doing them a GREAT disservice, essentially discarding them in the process and reducing them to second rate employees. They take on the risk knowing the dangers with the simple notion they think they can offer help to those who are helpless. They dont ask to be held to a higher standard or be celebrated, they just go about their jobs like the rest of us. The thing is, by their actions they arent like the rest of us at all. Given the choice, for the wages they earn in the environments they operate in, the majority of us would see alternate employment. Not being able to deal with the trauma, the suffering or even just the long hours and stress. So when they fall down and need support, why shouldnt they be entitled to everything within the full extent of the law exactly like we are? Its insultive, dismissive and even just plain mean to talk down these people with the sentiment its their job. We should be thanking them for their support and a career spent putting the greater good ahead of their own. Not cutting them down when they need it the most.

Ill write a post as big as i want. If people dont read it, their choice. If people post something i already mentioned, ill call them on it. In saying that, im not directing it specifically at the poster here, i went back to try and add that in to clarify but it said i couldnt edit it. Im talking about plenty of people coming out of the woodwork and commenting about if these people deserve it. Not this one specific post. Its not an overreaction when people are saying things like they are just seeking money, looking for an easy score, etc and using that same sentiment "its part of their job" as the reasoning. Look through the news stories and look at these complete arsehats coming out with vile posts like this. My partner is an rn and has come home from a shift so drained and mentally ruined by what happened at work that day that im amazed she even made it home without killing someone. Completely shut off from the outside world, she just had a quick shower and climbed into bed. Thats what id consider a common occurence. Worse are the few times she has called from work so upset and doesnt want to be alone let alone feel up to driving home. She somehow manages to deal with it, rarely needing a personal day, and makes it in for her next shift, mostly without a hint of what happened the day before. So, is it an overreaction to have the view that people are less entitled, or not entitled at all to seek damages from an employer who completely and utterly let them down, just because they are responders? But if you want to talk about the expectations, positions at a theme park would generally consist of first aid and making safe before ambulance officers can arrive. Is there a thought of death? Yes, in as much as you are the first medical person on scene. But it would be outside the norm when compared to other medical positions dealing with severe trauma daily. It would be so far down the list of occurences they would have rushed to the scene without even thinking they needed to prepare for what they witnessed. Does that place them on the same level of expectation? Because everything these days is graded or compared to what is expected as normal duties as part of their position. Would you say it's normal duties to expect them to go through something so graphic it cannot be made public in a court of law? That wouldnt have been a normal, daily thought that goes through your mind when called upon at the park. Without being too blunt, even the worst call for river rapids would have had drowing as an expectation of the worst, not the horrific trauma the victims experienced. So the scene is made even more confronting because you cant/arent prepared for it, because its not even thought of as a possible incident. Thats very evident in their testimony and is not something even trained, experienced, medical personel may have experienced before. Even without the criminal negligence hanging over the situation, these people would probably have been entitled to compensation for what they have witnessed and experienced, and the impact it has had on their lives, both work and personal. Know what insurance companies do in issues of negligence? They pass the buck and youre left to fight for your rights yourself. Too long? Heres the short(er) version No training given creates psychopaths with a lack of feeling or association for those around them. You can suffer a traumatic episode or breakdown in the course of your duties as a medical professional, in reaction to something you have witnessed or seen while working in this capacity. Your employer is legally required to maintain a safe working environment that does not expose you to additional or uncontrolled risk. Your entitlements at work are the same as everybody else and if you are injured, you are entitled to seek damages either personally or through the workcover system, which ever applies. Its not expected that youll suffer a breakdown or mental illness and not be able to return to your job or any further work because you are a medical professional. This does not absolve you of any compensation you should receive. Some people are utterly heartless and give no thought for the realities of what they are saying. Good luck to all staff still dealing with the tragedy. Seek help and advice or counselling if you need it, ignore the terrible people saying you shouldnt deserve it or youre just money hungry/money seeking. Fight for your dues and entitlements and hopefully begin to move on with your lives.

Its the start of the process and they usually end up in payouts before very messy, very public court cases. Anyway, fuck all that, why do people automatically assume that medical personel have training that protects them from shocking scenes of injury and death? They have support services in place to counsel them through incidents and have some testing to gauge their state of health, but its not like they are brainwashed, mindless robots and many are still left to suffer in silence while ptsd sneaks up on them and ruins their careers (and sometimes their lives). "Dealing with it" is an unnatural coping mechanism developed in response to trauma. Its actually a mental health issue that people are willing to suffer because of the greater good, not becaused they have training to switch it all off. They are literally willing to suffer damage to their health because they feel they can help others in greater need. Everybody needs to remember that. People are completely heartless when they say things like they are paramedics, nurses or doctors, they should be used to it. Its the same as you saying they are heartless, uncaring machines who are completely unaffected by their work. Nobody knows what someone has or hasnt seen, or just how full the bottle is with all the years or horrible incidents building up before a mental break occurs. Likewise, nobody knows exactly how any of us will respond to any emergency situation until it occurs. It could only take one incident to end your career and you do them a GREAT disservice to make suggestions like its expected of them, completely voiding people of the natural grieving process. So let me make this clear. Your employer has a duty of care to you. Forget the customers or guests, it starts with employees and they are often the first overlooked. Their duty of care is to maintain a safe working environment and not place any employee in a situation of risk that impacts on their health and welbeing. That is law. No matter your position, all the way up the chain to the most dangerous jobs you can think of. Risk management has been performed and safety mechanisms are implemented to make the job safe as possible. So when an employer has been shown to have failed in their duty of care, no matter what is expected of you job title, they are entirely responsible for all outcomes and the care of their employees. What they saw permanently impacted these employees so severely they felt they could no longer work for or maintain their position at dreamworld. Hell, some may not ever return to this type of work again, and dreamworld are entirely responsible for placing them in this position and for what they had to experience. People need to remember they are victims of this tragedy too, not just the poor people who lost their lives. That is the difference between an accident and negligence. If it was all a freak accident and the park had delivered on all their responsibilities, these people would have still experienced the same shocking scenes and the outcomes would have likely been the same, but work cover would have kicked in and covered them to the length of their policies. People forget work cover is NOT medical coverage, it is an insurance company who will fight for every dollar they have to give out. Coverage ends, its never for the rest of your life and they dont make a habit out of paying out policies in cases of gross negligence. Someone is going to end up sued and the employees sometimes say the whole court process was so terrible, often invasive and incredibly drawn out they probably wouldnt go through it if they could turn back time. This from the service many people seem to think is there, working in your best interests to cover you against serious injury and look after you for the rest of your life should something happen. Dreamworld failed and all their employees are entitled to everything they can reasonably prove in court. End of story.

Yeah. Never in the history of mankind has something been closed for any issue at all with safety. And in this case, safety could mean not having the staff levels to complete major maintenance works on time so some things are going to have to remain closed until it can be completed as their annuals are up and nobody would dare run anything past its annual inspection anymore.

By diverting foot traffic through openings only wide enough for one person at a time? Back of house issues aside, there is literally nothing in the ricks courtyard that would draw people to it in large enough amounts to need more access. Deliveries for ricks would be delivered to ricks, you know, the back where the staff actually are? So why do you need wide access? You could probably walk through legends dining room right from the back too. Theres a giant pair of gates right near the kids wb arch way that park vehicles like the batmobile and scooby van often enter or exit from, so im not really seeing how anything else improves access?

People have literally been passing out in queue lines and ride buildings, yet theres been no action on summer proofing them. Lucky if you have a working fan or something to hide from direct sunlight, so i cant see an indoor, sealed/air conditioned kids area being high on the list of stuff likely to happen. The kids area should stay for kids. Its targeted at young kids though, so maybe it needs an update to new rides for that same demographic, say, maybe up to 8 years old max. Then maybe add a couple other rides somewhere else in the park for older kids and tweeners who arent ready for coasters and thrill rides? Everyone saying cut and paste from a zamperla catalogue, thats pretty much what was done, just 20 years ago. The area was/is filled with zamperla rides. It always seemed weird to me that you have all these rides named after characters, most of which you never see. If they were looking for more, how about the statues you have in this part of the park make a real appearance too.

Isnt the point of the stations is they dont need to be manned? How do you save money by closing them? Weve had this discussion about soft drinks and health before. If you single them out as a problem you are a hypocrit if you dont also demand fruit juices, milks and iced teas removed from sale too as they frequently exceed the calories of soft drink and often contain vastly more sugar.

The front castle is looking great. Im not really that interested in an escape door.

I love it when things look all fresh and vibrant/full of contrast.

Half truths used as headlines to make everything seem more sinister even though the accident and the findings at the inquest answer those questions and fill in the blanks instead of cherry picking. They had an opportunity to tell a story from the other family. A genuine story without having to beat things up because the tragedy only needs good, honest reporting to drive home the loss. Instead it looks like they resort to usual tabloid journalism.

Aside from any areas that need inspection due to load/fatigue, because they are attached to the reduction gearbox which would probably be inspected and maybe have the bolts replaced. So the arms might need to come off.

Maybe its for doomsday if they dont want to close the whole area. Those arms probably have to come off and they are pretty large to house inside a building at the same time..

It cant be too indepth when you still have 2 more parts of the inquest to follow. Never know what is to come or what recommendations are to be made, so nobody with an ounce of credibility is going to comment in absolutes. It did a good job to highlight just how absolutely crushing it has been for Mathew Low though. Sometimes its kind of easy to put a name to a tragedy and kind of move on. Like, you acknowledge it but its not actually giving the situation enough due until you see the person again. The guy looked completely destroyed. He hasnt dealt with her death at all, it was even more telling when he said the park was respecting his requests to be left alone when answering the question about offers of support. It was sad because it was obvious he was trying to deal with it in his own way by pushing it to one side, but theres so much more to come once the inquest wraps up. If anyone wants to put a face to this tragedy, you can see how it has literally ruined his life. Its still so raw. You want to only offer your condolences again and hope that he has someone he can lean on, rather than trying to go it all alone.